


First Scars

by Thorinsmut



Series: Free Orcs AU [12]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU: free orcs, Birthday Traditions, Complete, Familial Relationships, Gen, One Shot, Scarification, Tattoos, imported as tumblr takes a swan dive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2019-09-17 14:56:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16976712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/pseuds/Thorinsmut
Summary: Free Orc Birthday Traditions:Aanash asked for gold rings linked with delicate chains to decorate the piercings that lined the bottom of her ears.Ilzkaal asked for her first scars.





	First Scars

**Author's Note:**

> peregrinatingscot requested: Free Orc birthday traditions?
> 
> So – in researching unusual birthday traditions to try to inspire myself for this one, I came across mention that in some cultures you are thought to become a year older on the first day of the year, regardless of day of birth. I thought that was cool so I ganked it.
> 
> I think gift-giving was probably not a thing until after the free Orcs began seeing other peoples do it and adapted it for their own.
> 
> Anyway – have some young Ilzkaal because I love her.

.

The world was warming. The soft scent of sun and rain and growing things wafted into the mountain from the outside on the first day of the year.

Ilzkaal had grown taller in the past year. She was the tallest in her pack, and taller even than Aanash, to her delight and her elder sister’s frustration – but Bolg was always sure to remind her that being _bigger_ meant it was her responsibility to do things smaller people couldn’t. Just as there were some things smaller people could do that a bigger person couldn’t.

Ilzkaal _tried_ to remember and be good… but she could not help straightening up just a _little_ bit as she walked past Aanash so that she was taller.

Because it was the first of the year, all the parents had little gifts for them, small sweets and new robes of soft bright fabric to wear.

Ilzkaal normally wore hers pinned above one shoulder, but today she wore it in layers falling around her legs, her chest bare. Everyone of her pack was excited, asking their parent or parents for a present for the new year. They asked for knives or pretty jewels or new paints. Aanash asked for gold rings linked with delicate chains to decorate the piercings that lined the bottom of her ears.

Ilzkaal asked for her first scars.

No one was surprised when she showed where she wanted them – she had worn paint in the lines she wanted for nearly an entire year, and she was not the _first_ of her pack to get their scars. She had chosen lines to highlight the top of her pectorals, underneath her collar bone, with blue ink in them – a blend between Orcish beauty scars and Dwarvish tattoos.

Aklash and Bolg looked at each other for a long moment before they nodded and sent for Azog to help do it right.

Ilzkaal had looked forward to this day for a _very_ long time, and she _wanted_ her scars, but by the time Azog arrived she was nervous. She lifted her head high and breathed deeply, so it wouldn’t show, but he still seemed to know.

Her famous grandfather traced the lines that stained her pale skin from the paint she wore with one big finger and smiled at her.

“It will hurt,” Azog said. “And the ink _stings_ … but you are an Orc. You can do this.”

Ilzkaal nodded, squaring her jaw.

He carefully cleaned her skin, and his sharpest black-bladed knife – the one made for him by the Dwarves.

The edge of the blade rested against Ilzkaal’s skin, cold and terrifying, and Azog’s iron hand braced her back to keep her still.

His pale eyes were gentle, when they met hers.

“Are you sure?” he asked, and she knew that if she said ‘no’ he would let her go. She would go unscarred and no one would say a word about it. She would not be the first of her pack to change her mind at the last moment.

If it was any one else behind the knife she would have been too afraid, but it was her _grandfather_ , and she had wanted this for _so long_.

“Do it,” she said, through her gritted teeth, and he nodded.

His motion was quick, light – down one side and up the other – and the blade so sharp there was half a beat before the pain struck.

Ilzkaal’s entire body flinched backward against Azog’s iron hand, her breath whistling in a sharp gasp as she _saw_ the blackness of her blood against the pallor of her skin – fire across her chest.

Azog dropped the knife beside him and grabbed the ink. It had to happen _fast_ , Ilzkaal knew, before such a shallow cut closed itself – but she wished she’d had a chance to _breathe_ before the stinging ink was being ground into the wound.

It _burned_. It burned and it was all Ilzkaal could do not to twist away. There was sweat on the back of her neck and tears in her eyes and she squeezed them shut as she choked down the scream she didn’t want to scream.

“You are very brave,” Azog was saying, low and quiet, just to her. “Just a little longer… breathe…”

And then finally, an eternity later, “Done.”

Aklash’s hands were on Ilzkaal’s back, now, and she sagged into her mother’s arms. Her breath was coming out in sharp little hiccups, but the awful sting of the ink was fading and she was floating now.

She laughed breathlessly when she opened her eyes to see her mother’s worried face above her.

Her chest was a mess of blood and ink when she looked down.

“It looks worse than it is,” her mother assured her quietly. “It’s mostly ink. Azog did a good job.”

Azog accepted Bolg’s help to scrub the ink from his hand before he brought a damp cloth over to wipe up the stray blood and ink – avoiding the cuts themselves – and that _did_ look less bad. Thin lines just where she wanted them, though they burned like fire with the small motion that was every breath.

“You were brave,” he told her, with an affectionate touch to the bottom of her chin. “Keep it clean, and it will be mostly healed in a few days.”

He would know, with all the scars he had gotten in far worse circumstances – with dirty ragged blades and with no way to clean them.

He had gotten them and continued fighting. Ilzkaal knew all the stories.

She pushed her way gently out of her mother’s arms to stand on her own with her head held high.

Every motion burned, but she was an _Orc._ An Orc could bear far more than this.

She clasped Azog’s hand briefly, nodding to him and her parents, before she walked back to her pack.

She would not be wrestling for a few days, but such small injuries _would_ not disable her. She could still do anything she needed to do – she, the largest and strongest of her pack, taking care of those smaller.

.


End file.
